Typically, an advertising sign is a public display which contains information meant to be disseminated widely to the public and intended to lead to awareness of and/or economic benefit to an entity. Often, advertising signs are placed outdoors in high traffic areas to reach the broadest possible audience. For instance, many advertising signs are placed on the side of roads, highways, and public tracks. However, this practice has several drawbacks. As a result of being placed outdoors, these signs are constantly exposed to all kinds of weather conditions such as rain, wind, snow, storms, and the like. These weather forces, namely wind, may cause the sign to fall over, which may lead to damaging the sign or even breakage. For these reasons, maintaining an advertising sign over a period of time may become costly and commercially impracticable for a user. As such, development of signs employing methods which focus on wind-resistance have emerged. These efforts, however, have resulted in the creation of signs that are often inefficient or have not been able to address consumer needs.
Several known paneled advertising signs are aimed at enabling a paneled portion of the sign to break away without detaching when impacted by a force, such as a vehicle. As such, these devices are typically used as roadside signs and fail to provide for effective wind-resistance while maintaining the integrity of the display of the sign. Moreover, the sign's panel does not contain coupled hinges which allow for the immediate return to the panel's original position. Said another way, for the sign's panel to return to its original position, it must be done by way of user interaction or user intervention.
Other known windproof advertising signs that do employ hinges, still require user interaction through use of a rod and/or a crank assembly that are operable to be manually operated by a user. To that end, when wind forces are exerted upon the device, it is intentionally designed to fall and maintain its original structure using a series of support and linkage mechanisms. However, for the advertising sign to be placed back to its upright position, a user must physically crank the sign back into its upright position. As such, these devices are burdensome, time-intensive, and inefficient at eliminating the human actor while maintaining the windproof characteristic.
Many other known paneled display devices can collapse and become compact, thereby allowing for easy storage. However, these devices are designed to accomplish the objective of facility of stowage and not wind-resistance.
Other known multiple-panel advertising signs enable a series of messages to be changed via a control and are aimed at presenting multiple advertisements using a single billboard. Although useful for displaying multiple messages within a single device, this system does not provide an effective means of wind resistance.
Some other known wind resistant multiple-paneled advertising signs enable wind flow through the advertising sign but align the panels vertically instead of horizontally, such as U.S. Pat. No. 1,823,404 (Marx et al.). These devices also utilize a series of weights and flexible connections to place the sign back to its unitary position. However, there are several drawbacks to these devices; for example, these devices incorporate a combination of different connective materials, thereby making them more expensive, and are complex and complicated to assemble.
Other known paneled advertising signs are aimed at being able to withstand blows of wind by pivoting on acute angle rotations on an axis supported by a frame. Further, these advertising signs feature the panel being coupled to either a weight or tension springs which maintain the panel in an upright position. However, these devices consist of a single panel as opposed to multiple, and do not allow the wind to successfully flow through the panel. Moreover, these signs stand atop a portable stand, making them more temporary, such as for sidewalk use.
Some other known wind resistant advertising signs are aimed at being portable and consist of a single panel coupled to a base which has fixed legs. However, these devices also suffer from several disadvantages. Specifically, since these signs consist of a single panel and a base which is not fixed to the ground, the sign is still vulnerable to wind as it could fall over when severe wind forces are exerted upon it. Moreover, the single panel does not allow for wind to flow through the sign's panels and return to their original position once the force terminates.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.